When a telephone call is placed, received or the Internet is used, data is sent back to a network from communication devices such as mobile and fixed telecommunications lines. A billing collector, such as METAPATH application server in an External Message Interface System (EMIS), collects this raw data. EMIS provides integrated modules for billing, customer care, tariff management, and network services. EMIS supports the communication market for mobile, fixed line, Internet and IP. This data is transferred as packets to a billing converter, such as MAF application server. When being transferred, the billing data must be sent though a firewall. Millions of records of billing data are sent per second from the billing collector to the billing converter. There are approximately forty records per packet. The billing converter converts the raw billing data into a format that it can be used for billing purposes.
Due to the volume of data transferred from the billing collector to the billing converter, the transmission of data cannot be manually analyzed. The volume of data being transferred from the billing collector to the billing converter also makes it difficult for a network analysis tool such as a sniffer to be used to analyze the transfer of data from the billing collector to the billing converter. As such, if a slowdown or backlog occurs in the transmission of billing data, it is difficult to troubleshoot or debug the cause of the slowdown. It is also difficult to determine a baseline amount of data being transmitted from each port of the billing collector. Since it is difficult to troubleshoot the problem, the transmission of data may become even slower and cause the billing system to become overloaded and not function properly.
As such, an application to help determine the cause for a problem or backlog in transferring billing data from the billing collector to the billing converter would be beneficial. It would be beneficial to be able to determine statistical baselines for the data to be transmitted from the bill collector to the billing converter.